


Apocrypha

by JoAsakura



Series: Sunbreaker: The Book of Mouse [2]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Forsaken, Implied Torture, M/M, blathering about Titans, lore babbling, pointless meandering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-08 12:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15930713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: A collection of random lore drops for Mouse.No spoilers for gameplay or main story in Forsaken, but for some of the new lore.





	1. Apocrypha

**Before:**

To feel the soil of a new world in his hands. It was all he wanted once, in another world.

But to know the secrets of how things grow, is also to know the secrets of how they die.

And when he awakens in skin of starlight and violets, he digs his hands into the rich earth and wonders which one he’s experiencing now.

 

**The Distributary:**

The city was too comfortable, Bevan thought as he trudged up the hill to his little collection of greenhouses. He had done his work - no one would go hungry on his watch, and the flowers would bloom in cascades of beauty. Others would carry on to feed their growing people, so, one day, Bevan Tar simply left.

The beautiful world was full of things he had not yet seen and not yet touched.

Where he was now was simply another stop on his journey.

Inside, he set his pack down and stretched, listening to his spine crack with the motion. The hands were around his waist in a flash and Bevan laughed as a kiss fell on the side of his throat. “You are far too stealthy for your own good. One of these days, I’m going to hit you with a shovel, Uldren.”

There was a silent shake of laughter against his back. “You’re very violent for a botanist.” Uldren swept Bevan’s long violet hair to the side and lightly bit down. “I was passing through with news for my Mother and it’s been too long since anyone saw you surface,” Uldren let him go and sprawled on the nearby cushions. “I thought something might have eaten you.”

Bevan settled into the space Uldren made for him, his back to the scout’s chest again and he tipped his head back. “You say I’m too ornery anyway, I’d just give whatever ate me heartburn.”

Uldren combed his fingers through the violet strands and placed a slow kiss on Bevan’s lips. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I brought you?”

The botanist squirmed away and resettled himself straddling the hunter’s lap. “ _Give_.” He extended his hand with a grin and a waggle of fingers.

Uldren groped for his pack and produced a container of rigid biopolymer. In the self-contained environment was a cutting. “The tree had the most extraordinary metallic bark and these enormous cascades of white flowers. I thought you would like it.”

Bevan sat back with an excited squeak and peered closely at it before looking past it, scowling at Uldren. “Tell me you recorded the environmental conditions? Maybe pictures of the surroundings?”

Uldren smacked him with a crystalline datapad. “Of course I did. What kind of scout would I be if I wasn’t observant, Bevan Tar?”

Bevan set the container down carefully. “Maybe you should show me how observant, Uldren Sov.”

 

**The Hulls:**

He and Uldren were like thunderheads, storms rolling in and crashing against each other over the centuries, only to drift apart when they were spent.

And when _Mara’s Brother_ came to him (because Uldren Sov and Mara’s Brother are two different entities as far as Bevan is concerned. _Uldren_ is sweet and thorny, and while neither of them like to be stuck in one place, they always seem to find each other. But  _Mara’s Brother_ , on the other hand, is like a paper cut to him. It stings to see how the more Mara asks of him, the deeper Uldren’s devotion is and the further away he goes from the rest of them), Bevan felt a change in the air. A new storm between them.

 “You’re not just a botanist, Bev. You’re one of the best biologists we have. If we go through with this, we need someone like you for us to survive,” Mara’s Brother becomes Uldren again and takes Bevan’s hand.

“You’re willing to give up everything to return to a reality that cast us out?” Bevan’s hand trembles. Not from fear, but from a long ago ache, to touch the soil of a foreign world. He already knows he’s going to say yes, and Uldren knows it too.

“GEOD. Go flight.” The words from across the bridge snap him out of his reverie and he checks the display in his sensorium. “BIO. Go flight,” he says, swallowing hard and Uldren nods at him with a tiny smile.

“Weapons. Go flight,” Uldren says sharply and then in the next moments, everything goes to hell.

 

**The Reef:**

They fell from paradise to help save their ancient home, and denied, a shattering takes place.

He knows Mara is desperate to keep the rift in their people from widening. Desperate to stop the storm she knows is coming. The storm he helped brew. 

Desperation makes people do terrible things. 

That’s what he tells himself as _Mara’s Brother_  drags the knife across his hands again and Bevan Tar screams but doesn’t beg.

 

**The Dreaming City:**

As Uldren brings back the abomination, the Awoken Guardian who was once Chao Mu, a sick burn rises in his chest, seething like acid all the way back from Earth.

The Traveler was not content to raise its own people now. It had to steal the dead of others, and after he gives the creature over to his sister, after he is given his leave, the Queensbrother retreats to an old section section of the Reef, an abandoned garden away from the eyes of the ahamkara and the techeuns. Nothing of value grows here anymore except for an old tree with faded metallic bark and panicles of white flowers.

The botanist (Don’t think his name. Mara had erased him. Don’t think his name) had brought so many seeds, so much potential, but the first thing he’d planted was that damn tree.

Uldren sits beneath it and squeezes the hilt of his knife until his hand hurts. He had done what Mara needed. He always did what Mara needed.  His old love never understood that. 

(don’t think his name) should have been peacefully dead with ancient soil between his fingers. But now, the idea that the Traveler might drag him up, a puppet in it’s endless war,  it makes him sick. 

He can’t think about it, it will drive him mad.  And so Uldren Sov closes off those memories, locks them in a dark place in his mind.

He doesn’t think of violets and starlight again.

 

 

Until the day he speaks to Vance.

 


	2. Palimpsest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More lore drops!

 

 

 

**Earth/1**

_To know the secrets of how things die, is to know the secrets of how they grow._

This is the thought that burns as neurons bridge and fire for the first time. Before there is sense or identity, there is that message.

Hearing and sight come online moments before the ability to decipher the input  does, and there is just light and darkness crashing against each other, a howl of static and noise, and the new mind doesn’t understand light/darkness/silence/noise.

But it understands _grow_.

And so it does. And the (Guardian) wheezes (his) first (breath) into new (lungs), and new (eyes) sting and water as he digs his (hands) into the sharp, sandy ground.

Something is making noise at him while he stares at pale violet fingers splayed on the hardpack. Light shifts just beneath the skin and he doesn’t understand what he’s looking at until the _ball_. The _eyeball_. The _GHOST_. _Ghost_. _The Ghost_. _Stellamaris_. _His_. _His Ghost_. Until **Stel** inserts himself in his field of vision and the jumbled chatter and chirp resolves itself into words.

“...weren’t going to breathe. Oh, Light. _Light_.  You’re here. We can’t stay here there are so many fallen coming. Please, you have to get up, you have to get up now...”

Automatically, his hand goes to his side, expecting to find something besides the smooth plane of cool flesh. (There’s no blood,) he thinks and he doesn’t know why.

“I’m here.” He says out loud and his hand, flies to his face, unsure of what just happened.

“There were mouse nests in your skull. I was so scared I couldn’t bring you back, Guardian,” Stel babbles and he holds his hand out for the ghost ( _his_ ghost) to light upon it.

 _Mouse_. He knows _Mice_. He knows _bones_. The thought of the two conflating, his _dead_ bones (he was _dead_. He knows _dead_. He is not dead now but he’s not _alive_ either) sheltering the _small_ and _fearful_ (he was never small, but _fear_. he was afraid. and then he was not. He’s not _afraid_ now) , it makes him laugh.

He’s not entirely caught off guard by the bark of sound, the laugh, but it still sits strangely with him. “Mouse. _I’m_ Mouse. I’m _here_ ,” he repeats, making sure the sound is coming from him as it vibrates in his chest.

“We can talk about your name later, please, get up Guardian. We have to move now!” Stel pleads and _Mouse_. Mouse plants a tiny kiss on his shell, because that is what you do when you love something. He knows _love_.

And as the first Fallen scramble through the narrow corridor of stone that had sheltered his corpse, he knows war.

 

**Earth/2**

They have been walking along a trellised bridge, across an open sea, for three weeks. The ruins of trains provide shelter, and the seagulls he kills with a Fallen’s gun provide food.

The trains are full of bones, and he wonders if they’ll wake up like he did.

They never do.

He is sick of seagull.

Stel keeps explaining things. Elemental powers, Titans, the City (where they are going and which Mouse secretly thinks may not actually exist because up until now, the world has been desert, blood, salt water, and ruins.

He wears a Fallen’s cloak to protect himself from the sun. It’s too bright and too hot, and he prefers to sleep in the shade of the trains until night comes. His eyes are more suited to seeing in shadow.

The first time he sees his reflection, he takes a swing at it. The haggard purple face staring back at him is a stranger’s. Afterwards, they laugh about it, and Stel warns him every time they pass a reflective surface.

Nearly four weeks and they come to the end of the bridge, to more burnt earth, more Fallen.

He’s died forty eight times in four weeks. Stel brings him back every time, and it never stops feeling terrible.

He is sick of dying.

~

There is a village, an encampment really,  in the bones of a dead city. It’s full of creatures that walk like he does, but they’re not violet, or blue, or green- the colours his brain says People should be. They’re pink and brown and their eyes have no glow like his .

He thinks they’re dead things, unlike his own _questionably_ alive state, and prepares to take a shot until Stel yells at him and explains Humans.

Small and fearful, huddling in the dry, dead bones of the past. He feels the same towards them as the mice, and shoulders his weapon to say hello with his hands empty.

One of them sees him and shoots _him_ in the head instead.

Mouse is sick of dying.

 

**Earth/3**

It’s eleven months, three weeks, nine hours and thirty two minutes since Stellamaris found a skeleton in a dead riverbank and woke it up.

Mouse knows this because Stel reminds him of it periodically.

He has been walking for a lot of that, in between dying and eating and sleeping. He’s lost track of how many times he’s died.

Eleven months, three weeks, nine hours and thirty two minutes and the Traveler looms like a moon on the horizon.

“We’re home!” Stel yells and Mouse stares at it, _afraid_.

It’s pouring rain and pitch dark when Stel unlocks a gate for Ghosts and leads him through the labyrinth of corridors and stairs and the closer he gets to the top, the more he wants to run back outside.

There’s the hum of machinery, the industry of Humans scurrying about. None of them talk to him, but a few stare and he tugs the dirty cloak a little tighter. “They’re used to new guardians showing up,” Stel tries to sound comforting, but Mouse can’t help feel a little angry that the Traveler goes to all the trouble of waking people up and then not providing them with a ride.

Finally above the walls, Mouse takes a deep breath. The plaza they come to is empty, save for a few machines sweeping, and the City spreads out before them, lights twinkling as the rain beats down on them.

For a moment, he just stares at it, heart hammering in his chest. He is more afraid than he’s been since he was born in the dead river.

 _Then_ , he feels the power. Not the odd hum in his bones that’s been building since they arrived here, but something immediate, huge, powerful and he turns, lashing out with the instinct born of hundreds of deaths over almost a year. He can’t control it, not well- the Void and the Arc and the Solar- but he puts all of it into the punch before he realises what he’s done.

There’s a voice, flanged like his own, not like the flat voices of Humans.  “Oh, hel...”. Eyes that glow like his. Skin the blue of real People. And Mouse doesn’t register _any_ of it until he hits them.

Flesh and metal and he hits them hard enough to rocket the person back through a wall, shattering stone in a cloud of dust as more humans come scrambling out of seemingly everywhere. Not just humans. Things like him, dead but no longer, some who had been humans, who had been machines. They feel different, but they have guns too.

Stel is making noises and Mouse forgets words as his eyes dart around. He’s fought more Fallen at once than this. He knows war.

Purple and blue and gold skitter up his arm as there’s the clack and snap of weapons around him. Thunder booms overhead and the lightning flashes (but the lightning comes before the thunder. Stel explained Storms to him) and as it strikes him, hard enough to knock him over, he realises it’s the Person he hit. The Humans and the Others don’t attack.

“You must be a new Titan,” the Person standing over him says and offers Mouse a hand. “Welcome, son.”

 

No one ever lets him forget he tried to kill Commander Zavala on their first meeting.


	3. Limerence

**Gerion/1**

 

Mouse, Titan, five years reborn and Apprentice of the First Pillar, sits in an office hung with weapons and tapestries and in the middle of it is a man in wolf-festooned armour, staring at him. This man, this Iron Lord, looms like a grouchy, gravel-voiced shadow in every Titan's life, even Commander Zavala's.

Saladin Forge is the single most terrifying person Mouse has met in his short new life, and while he knows he hasn't exactly met THAT many, he's hard pressed to imagine someone moreso.

"Mouse," Saladin says in a tone of voice that says (this is an insulting name for a Titan and I resent you choosing it), "It's come to my attention that you're not participating in Shaxx's drills."

Mouse tears his eyes away from the grim-faced, dark man in his elaborate hardsuit and stares instead at a little pyramid of crystal, quartz, glass, _something_ , holding some papers down on his desk. It glitters in the sunlight streaming in through the high windows and casts tiny rainbows in blue and green and red across his reports. "That's not entirely... accurate. Sir." He feels vulnerable in just a grey undersuit and boots, and wonders if Saladin is judging him for showing up in anything less than a full kit. "I'm learning the meditations, I'm doing the drills. I haven't accidentally electrocuted Lord Shaxx in a year," he ticks off on his fingers.

"But you're not participating in the live combat drills," Saladin muses, steepling his armoured fingers with a soft rasp of metal. "It can't be that you're too weak. After all..."

Mouse winces, waiting for the inevitable comment.

"...you punched Zavala harder than I think he's ever been hit in his life." Saladin lifts an eyebrow and Mouse sinks down with a groan into the heavy wooden chair.

Stel's shell clacks as he bristles on Mouse's behalf, and the Titan waves him off. "Sir. Lord Saladin. I know I'm not very old. But it took me a long time to walk here and I died... a lot," he says after a moment.

"One hundred and forty five resurrections," Stel interrupts. "The worst day was six. Do you remember that? With the..."

"The bear. Yeah, I _remember_ _the bear,_ Stel," Mouse rubs his eyes, and watches the rainbows. "I know that's not a lot. Not compared to you, to Commander Zavala... to... but," Mouse finally works up the nerve to stare Saladin Forge right in the eyes and he'd probably throw up if he'd actually eaten breakfast. "It sucked. It was terrible. Dying was awful and getting resurrected was almost as bad. I... I don't have a problem going to war to protect people, if that's what I have to do. But I don't want to hurt the very people I'm supposed to fight side by side with! I want to help them be strong, but I don't want to cause them pain just because it seems like a useful training tool," he finishes, bracing for the response.

"Do you know how old I am, Mouse?" Saladin gets up and paces.

"I don't think there's a safe way for me to answer that," Mouse says and Saladin snorts.

"Old enough to remember when your people, when the Awoken, first came to Earth. They were so afraid, traumatised, even. And we... the Risen... we were wary of them, even if the Iron Lords would eventually have some among our numbers. It could have been another war. But they... were _kind_. 'We came from so far away, cousins,' they said to us. They brought medical tech, water purification. They saved so many lives with their kindness," Saladin says quietly, looking at the tapestries. "You're _kind_ , like they were. But I don't want your kindness to be the death of you or your fireteam."

"Sir," Mouse focuses on the little pyramid. "I promise. It won't."

~~

Gerion Rice is waiting for him in the corridor. The other Titan is what people think of when the word "Titan" comes up. A gruffly handsome wall of meat, thick black hair caught in a long braid and his copper skin festooned with the marks commemorating a hundred fights. His grey eyes narrow at Mouse as he leans against a nearby pillar and his black undersuit creaks. "You do not look like someone who's had their ass reamed out by Saladin Forge," he says, clearly disappointed.

" _You_ were the one who threw me under the sparrow," Mouse pushes past him for the lift. "I should have known."

"I don't like someone who thinks they're so special they can't train with the rest of us. Someone who thinks they're good enough to put hands on Commander Zavala. I'm not gonna carry your purple ass in the field, Princess Sparkles," Gerion looms behind him, five inches taller and at least fifty pounds heavier, and Mouse just stabs the lift button.

 

**Gerion/2**

"There is a very specific level of irony here, Rice," Mouse grunts as he hauls the other Titan up an incline in the frozen twilight-blue gloom. "What the hell do you eat, you weigh as much as a jumpship, _Light_! Anyways. Irony."

Stel and Gerion's ghost, Ambrosia, are pulling ahead of them, scanning for threats. The half-frozen Clovis Bray facility is lit up behind them with fire, and there is the growl of Fallen walkers everywhere. "I found a maintenance tunnel!" Stel yells. "We can hide here."

"Mouse, please stop talking." Gerion groans as Mouse drags him into the little tunnel. The bigger Titan is missing a leg and half an arm. His armour is a shattered wreck, and even though Rosie has stopped the bleeding, there's an unpleasant green-grey creep on his skin. "Rosie, what's going on?"

"It's poison, Geri," Rosie fusses around him as Mouse struggles to prop him up. "I can't heal this. We're going to have to..."

"Yeah, got it." Gerion lolls his head against the wall, grey eyes glazed over as they fix on the faint green glow of Mouse's. "You hear from the others?"

"Still trying to raise the rest of them. I'm going to take the fact that the facility is still exploding to be a good sign," Mouse slides down beside him. "But nothing yet."

Gerion closes his eyes. " _Welp_.You're up, Princess."

Mouse unholsters the sidearm from the back of his belt and ratchets the ammo into place. "I always thought I'd enjoy shooting you in the head more than I think I am."

"Hey, wait. Wait. _Wait_ ," Gerion lifts his remaining hand, weakly. "What do you like to eat?"

"What?" Mouse scowls hard at him. "We do _not_ have time for any more cracks about Fancy Elf Salad or whatever the hell you think I eat."

"I'm fucking serious, Mouse. What the fuck do you like to eat, you're gonna shoot me in the head, you owe me that," Gerion coughs out a string of phlegm.

"Steam buns. Like bao. I love the whole chewy, soft outside and then, inside, maybe it's red beans, spicy shrimp, pork. I love steamed buns, ok?" Mouse waves the sidearm at him. "Ok?"

"Cool." Gerion closes his eyes and Mouse puts a solar-charged bullet in his head.

 

~~

 

Gerion Rice wheezes awake in a dark, cold room. Beside him, Rosie's blue glow softens. "Welcome back, sunshine," she chirps as he sits up, rubbing his face.

"It wasn't this dark when Mouse popped me," he grunts, picking off the ruined remains of his hardsuit. "What happened?"

"Patrols. I couldn't risk the Light until they passed," she buzzes around him, checking for any more poison.

"Where's Mouse?" Gerion calls up a crackle of lightning to illuminate the storage room.

"Up by the entrance, he's been standing watch," she says, shell narrowing coyly.

Gerion doesn't respond, but he drags himself up the inclined tunnel to where Mouse is crouched, peering through the scope of his rifle. He shoots like a Hunter, Gerion thinks. "Hey."

"Hey, welcome back," Mouse answers without looking away. "Got in touch with Six and Reeder. Maze is dead, but Juniper's ok. He's gonna rez him as soon as they get to our new ride. The jumpship apparently had an... 'unfortunate turn of events,' so Digby is trying to steal a ketch."

"Well, we're gonna die here, then." Gerion sits beside him. "You still got the data cores?"

"Stel and Rosie put them in storage. Even if we don't make it out, the Vanguard will get the data and the Fallen won't," Mouse finally lowers the rifle, and glances back, eyes glowing in the dark.

"We make it home, there's a really good bao shop down the block from my apartment," Gerion stares out into the night. "I'm taking you to dinner."

"I thought that was just  your dying small talk," Mouse leans against the doorframe.

"Nah. It's a date."

"It's _not_ a date."

 

**Gerion/3**

 

"Serenity, I have a date tonight and I don't know what I'm doing," Mouse says to the Hunter sitting on his windowsill as the snow starts to fall over the City.

She exchanges a dramatic look with her Ghost, then pops in. " _You_. Have a _date_. With _who_?"

"Gerion Rice," Mouse says and immediately steps back as she stabs a finger at him.

"The man who tried to stuff you in a LOCKER?" Serenity spits out at him.

"Empty threat, I'm too big to fit in a locker, and yes."

"It's a trap," she says, narrowing her eyes.

"It's sincere. I think. It's dinner, it may not even be a date. It's just buns," he says and she scrubs her hand over her face.

"Light. Ok. What's the problem?" Her eyes scan the purple-skinned man in front of her, wearing a set of generic tower guard sweatpants and a commemorative t-shirt from Marcus Ren's last band.

"I have nothing to wear," Mouse gestures at his outfit. "The only other clothes I own are armoursuits."

"Oh, _Light_. You're pathetic," she mutters, stalking back to the window. "Give me an hour. You owe me, grape ape."

~~

The sweater is a dark gold and the pants are coffee-coloured suede. His boots are old, but they look rakish, not slovenly when not paired with sweatpants. Serenity smooths the back of his furry-trimmed jacket as he pulls his hair back. "So. How do I look?"

"If it's not a date, Gerion's gonna wish it was. If it _is_ a date, tell him if he doesn't treat you nice, I'm gonna kneecap him at an unspecified future date," she grins and he bends to press a kiss to her forehead. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do, big guy."

"That is a terrible guideline," he rolls his eyes as he pulls up the hood.

"Just remember, you're a tower Guardian! Legally, if you get arrested they can't hold you without calling Zavala!" She yells at him as he trudges out to the tram station.

 

~~

Bao Wonder is halfway across the city, and one framecab ride from the nearest transit station, the snow falling in fat, white flakes as he crunches across the street. It's a little place, homey, neon sign blinking in the flurries. Mouse steps inside and shakes the snow from his hair, bracing for some sort of prank.

Instead, Gerion Rice is sitting in a booth, stacks of bamboo steamers on the pink formica table and a grin on his face. "I wasn't sure you were going to make it," he says, standing as Mouse hangs up his coat. "It's getting a little rough out there."

"I think the last time the trains stopped running was before either one of us was born," Mouse laughs, then stops, watching Gerion's eyes travel over him. "What."

"I didn't think you owned anything but sweatpants and armoursuits," Gerion grins at him and waits for Mouse to sit. "You clean up real good."

Mouse snorts and peers into the steamers. "Traveler's crack, how much did you order?"

"One of everything. I told Connie that I was bringing another Titan here. We're kind of it for their business tonight," Gerion says, around a mouthful of pork floss bun.

"I won't let you down, Fireteam Leader," Mouse laughs again and for a second, Gerion Rice turns a dark red.

~~

"...there I was, it's been five hours of me and this Winter Captain chasing each other all over Old Sydney," Gerion gestures broadly with a bean bun. "And I have her. I fucking HAVE her. I'm thirty feet up on a spire, and I see her in my targeting HUD."

"Why do I think this is going to end badly?" Mouse shoved another in his mouth.

"I crank up the old Fist of Havoc, and I fucking launch myself off this building. The plan is to leave a Fallen stain on the ground. I plummet earthwards and!" Gerion pauses and then grins. "I fucking miss."

"WHAT," Mouse chokes on his bun.

"By like six feet. I blow right past her, shatter the pavement and end up in a sealed septic system full of thousand year old shit," Gerion shoves the bun in his mouth.

Mouse wheezes a laugh, shoulders shaking. "No!"

"Finally, I claw my way out, I'm covered in crap, and she's still there. She's just standing there, and I can't tell if she's dead or what and then..." Gerion leans back. "There's this sound like a fucking power drill. She's laughing her ass off at me, turns out. Then I start laughing, and we're both sitting down. And she looks at me, with this grindy translator and goes "Do more damage to Guardians by letting you live, Shit Knight," and she just can't stop laughing." The other Titan's face sobers. "That's when I realised, maybe we just want the same thing. To live. Anyways, I'm not gonna shoot her, she's not gonna shoot me. Eventually she fucking flips me off  Fallen style and heads out, yelling SHIT KNIGHT! Back at me one more time. I hope she's still around."

Mouse pockets a piece of bao in his cheek, and leans his chin on his hand. "That is _not_ what I expected."

" _Let's make friends with the Fallen_ is vaguely heretical, you know," Gerion prods at one of the remaining buns. "But. You know, we all idolize Zavala. Shaxx. Saladin. They're our heros. And I took you to be an enemy of that when you showed up, when you just wanted to live, too. I'm sorry for all the times I was a shitlord to you."

"Shit Knight, you mean," Mouse finishes his bun with a thoughtful chew.

"Light, you're an infuriating creature. _But_. I deserved that."

Mouse knows he's been called that before. He just can't remember when, and he lets his hand cover Gerion's- pale violet on copper.

The owner yells at them, before it can go any further. The snow's coming down and they're closing.

"My place is right up the street. I have a great beer collection and the first three seasons of Guardian Jackass on record," Gerion tries as they package up the leftovers and step out into the snow. "That is if you're interested. I know this isn't a date. But I just wanted to, I mean. I don't..."

Mouse drags him down and shuts him up with a kiss that is very different than the one he planted on Serenity earlier. A slow drawl of conversation made by lips and breath steaming in the cold. In the neon light, Gerion's stained blue and purple and green, and Mouse thinks he's never been more handsome. Blue is his favourite colour, and he says as much, snow beading silver on his eyelashes.

Mouse remembers waking up. He knew love before he knew war.

Tonight, he makes sure Gerion Rice knows it too.

 

**Gerion/4**

Six is dead. Reeder is dead. Digby is screaming for their Ghost, and Maze disappeared with so many others in the curtain of incendiary bombs. The air is full of ash and smoke, the perfect blue sky shining through the breaks in the billowing clouds.

Twilight Gap is burning and Mouse can't hear his own shouts over the ringing in his ears.

There is so much blood. Human Red, Awoken Violet, the Black synthblood of Exos and the dark gleam of Fallen. Broken Ghosts are everywhere, glinting in the charred earth like diamonds and Mouse screams Geri's name as he rips off his shattered helmet, panting. There's a wink of iridescent indigo, and Mouse scrambles for it, over the bodies of the First Pillar, the Stoneborn, the Firebreak and the Sunbreakers, over Hunters and Warlocks and he knows them. He knows the marks and the cloaks and the bonds and he can't look at them because they're dead and Geri, Geri is...

Weeks later, Ouros pulls the remaining Sunbreakers back to Mercury. The sky there is yellow and the sand and the Vex and Mouse begs her to take him.

He doesn't want to see blue again for a long time.


	4. Hiraeth

**The end of the Theodicy War**

 

The Eccaleists were spreading Mara's word with the ending of the bitter war and Uldren leaned on a railing, peering out at the calm ocean, feeling an equal peace. He would do anything for his sister, even this.

At least until his comm chimed softly. He scowled down at it. _Nil and Aris_ , his people, among scouts and hunters who gathered together under him like crows. Aris had a black eye and Nil was missing several teeth and Uldren Sov blinked. "What the hell happened to you two?"

"We went to spread news to Melusina. Comms are still bad in the valley and... we ran into trouble," Aris said, prodding at her eye.

"A crazy purple man beat me with a shovel," Nil blurted out, scowling. "And then he took out Aris and then shot at us with an old pulse shotgun until we were out of range."

"He said..." Aris and Nil shared a glance on the screen and Uldren thought he felt a migraine starting. "He said 'get your fucking proselytizing asses out of here' and then some really improbable anatomical suggestions."

"Purple," Uldren rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'll go take care of it."

"Uldren, he's _insane_ ," Aris said.

"And he's a really good shot, there's this hole in the transit and..." Nil continued and she elbowed him.

"I said I've got it," Uldren groaned.

"Is he an old friend?  An enemy?" Aris pushed.

"Neither. He's my husband," Uldren shut the comm off before Aris could ask anything else.

~~~

Uldren remembered Melusina as a beautiful hamlet of smartglass buildings nestled at the side of a waterfall, bio-luminescent plants making the night as beautiful as the days. As he throttled down his shrike, all he could see was a charred wasteland. _The price of civil war,_ he thought grimly. He'd barely gotten past the ruined outskirts when there was the flare of a pulse gun, and the shot pinged off the hood. "You're not welcome here," a familiar voice said, and Uldren followed the line of sight to the scruffy, handsome man, his deep purple hair pulled back and a smudge of dirt on one sharp, pale-violet cheekbone.

"You have a beard," Uldren said dumbly, blinking under the visor of his helmet as he raised his hands. "I mean, the war's over, you can stand down."

"Tell that to the morons still shooting at each other down in the valley," Bevan Tar said from behind the rifle. "I mean it. Leave, go tell them, asshole."

"Bevan, you _idiot_ , it's me," Uldren said, carefully pulling off the helmet. He wasn't sure if he was impressed or annoyed the other man didn't immediately lower the weapon. "Can we talk?"

Bevan slowly lowered the gun and brought a fist up. Immediately, Uldren tensed. _Snipers, stars burn him, he'd been so focused on Bevan he hadn't even thought_... His line of thought stopped again as Bevan opened his hand, then let it drop. "You deliberately make yourself bait because everyone's going to look at a crazy man with a gun and miss the snipers. Where the hell did you learn that?" He looked around,, definitely leaning towards impressed, trying to spy where the other guns had been.

"I spent a lot of time with _you_ ," Bevan let the gun rest on his shoulder. "I mean it, though, Uldren. If you're here to spread the word of your _sister_ , fuck off."

"I'm here because you beat the shit out of my people and the war is really over," Uldren set his helmet down and strode over to the other man. "What happened here?"

"Either a Sanguine bomb kite sent to take out the Eccaleist camp at the north end, or an Eccaleist one sent towards the Sanguine at the south end of the valley. Either way, they missed," he said bitterly, long legs carrying him towards the town center. "Theodicy War my ass, Idiocy War is more like it."

Uldren hurried to catch up, knowing full well Bevan was still keeping him on the defensive. "It was a battle for our peoples' souls, Bev."

"It was a philosophical difference. Philosophy doesn't feed a family or fix a broken arm. Philosophy gets people killed. I prefer concrete reality to abstractions," Bevan snorted as they entered one of the standing buildings. Inside was a field hospital, and Uldren caught the hard whiff of blood and worse. There were soldiers from both sides, women and a few men, bandaged and damaged and all of them eyeing Uldren suspiciously. One woman sat herself up, looking for a weapon.

"Doc, did he do something to you?" She spat, hand closing on a glass as she lurched to her feet.

"Inissa, sit down before I shoot you in your good leg." Bevan grumbled. "He's here to tell us the war's over."

"You're a medical doctor now?" Uldren stared at his former husband as the soldier glared at him.

"Someone had to be after the real ones we had died," Bevan's pale green eyes met Uldren's gold. "I was the closest substitute. Lucky I learn fast."

Uldren followed him into what passed for an office. "Bev, I thought you were in the Cheresids, how did you end up here?"

"I was on my way back when everything went to hell," he sighed, setting the gun down. "I knew a couple other eutechs who lived here, figured it was better than trying to get back to the capital."

"I'll make sure everyone here gets to a hospital," Uldren tried a different tack. "I promise." Gently, Uldren swept Bevan's messy purple ponytail to the side. "I knew your feelings on the divide before you left. I know you prefer things you can touch..." he ran a thumb over the back of the biologist's neck and Bevan shivered, turning to look at him. "Things you can smell..." Uldren pulled him close, burying his face in Bevan's hair. He always smelled good. Mint and flowers and ancient coniferous trees. "And taste." Cautiously, Uldren kissed him, prepared to get punched. But Bevan relaxed fractionally in his arms, chasing the kiss with his own.

"I'm so glad you're not dead," Uldren whispered against Bevan's lips. "I don't know what I'd do..."

Bevan immediately pulled away, green eyes hard. Uldren waited for the bitter comment about Mara, but Bevan sagged, a little defeated. "I'm still angry with you," he said instead. "Get these folks some real help, and talk to me in a year."

"A year?" Uldren closed a hand around Bevan's wrist. "I went from thinking you were as safe out of the conflict as you could be, to finding out you've been here, and we're together again, and.."

Bevan yanked his hand free. "Two years."

 

**The Reef**

Bevan Tar was in the middle of arguing with the water systems eutechs when he saw Mara drift into the garden, and he closed the sensorium link without preamble. "Mara." She was without Sjur Eido, and he hoped the bodyguard wouldn't suddenly barrel in and tackle him.

Mara peered up at where the passive starlight collectors glowed, focusing light and and heat into the farm.  "I'm impressed," she said simply, not looking at him. She looked instead at the vertical racks of plants in their nutrient-rich recycled water from the fleet. "Not as good as terraforming, but your team does good work, Bevan."

"They're not my team, I'm part of theirs," Bevan mused, gliding over to her. Low gravity and passive light collectors meant precious energy could be redirected towards atmo control and the pumps. "And it's going to take a while before Sera Yin's geoengineers figure out how to replace the parts that were on the Hulls that didn't make it."

"All I know is I saw the two of you yell "Biodynamic Systems!" at each other yesterday, and she's been in her lab ever since." One white eyebrow inched up her face as she turned to look at the tree growing in the corner, it's gleaming metallic bark emerging from a patch of actual soil. "But why did you bother planting that?"

"It has amazing nitrogen-fixing qualities, the leaves will help provide extra biomass for manual composting right now, and the flowers it'll grow smell nice. We're trying to make an asteroid belt home, a little cheering up can't hurt," Bevan looked around the room. "Still, this is a closed system, even if we keep venting waste heat. Eventually entropy is going to cause it to fail. But hopefully by then, we'll be on Earth." A fat bee drifted past him. "We have biotemplates for virtually every animal  an ecosystem needs. Depending on how bad things are there, we can build a response to it."

Mara turned to him finally. "Bevan, _why_ did you come on this journey?"

He blinked. "Isn't it a _little_ late to ask me that, considering we're permanently stranded in this reality now?"

"I mean, I'm grateful Uldren talked you into it. We needed all the eutechs we could get. But you never struck me as the kind to make this kind of a statement," she swept a hand over the scene around them.

"To know how the secrets of how things grow, means you know the secrets of how they die," Bevan mused. "Everything dies, except us. We couldn't, back home, unless we did something stupid..." he shot her a sharp look, but she didn't flinch. Mara Sov never flinched in his experience. "But here, in the soil of foreign worlds, we might. And if, in the process, I can do good here, for our people, for our cousins back on earth, then this is an adventure well spent for me."

"I thought you hated philosophy," Mara laughed. "I'm surprised. I wasn't expecting that. You always did things in your own way."

"Did you think I was going to say I came because of my undying love for your brother?" Bevan asked and she sobered.

"Honestly, yes."

"I'll _always_ love him, Mara. But I'm also well aware that if it ever comes down to a choice between you and me, he's going to choose you every time," Bevan looked out at the stars.

"Then let's hope, for both of you, that you and I never find ourselves at odds."

 

**The Burning Shrine**

Ouros had been looking for Mouse for almost an hour. _She was the Empyrean Magistrate of the Sunbreakers, for Light's sake. She didn't have time to..._ There was a clank overhead and she stilled, looking up. "MOUSE. Get out of the ventilation system and come see me, right now." She certainly hoped it was the youngest of her charges and not a rogue Vex harpy that had gotten stuck in the pipes again. That had been a mess.

But Mouse shimmied out of a vent, and she rubbed her face. Titans were never small, but he was smaller than some. "Were you messing with the condensers again?" She folded her arms.

Mouse blinked at her and it took a moment for the idea he needed to answer caught up with him. He'd been so broken when he'd pleaded with her to take him. Sometimes she wasn't sure this was better.

"Filtration media," he jerked a thumb up towards the ceiling as Stel bobbed next to him. "Some of it's older than Osiris' nose hairs. Fortunately, we live on a planet with an abundance of rocks, sand and dead trees. Someone has to fix this stuff."

"Zavala is sending a potential new Sunbreaker to us," Ouros said before he wandered off on a tangent. "There's been a rise of solars again among the Titans on earth."

Mouse followed her down the corridor to her quarters, wiping his hands on the grey undersuit he wore. "So, that's nice?"

"He asked if we could send an... emissary. Apparently many of the others are lighting Shaxx on fire at inopportune moments." She looked significantly at him and watched the light come on behind his eyes.

"No." Mouse wheeled on his heel and marched towards the door.

"MOUSE." He froze and gave her a dirty look over his shoulder.

"So, you're kicking me out?" His voice didn't shake and she found herself just a little proud of him.

"I'm giving you a mission," Ouros sighed and sat down. "Mouse, you _exiled_ yourself here. I'm grateful. You stood before the Forge unflinching. You're one of us, but this is something you need to do. Can you imagine Liu Feng in the City?"

"Light, _no_ ," Mouse dragged a hand through his hair. "Magistrate... I just..."

"You can't keep blaming yourself for what happened," she said gently. "You faced that in the Forge."

"I'm the one who convinced Gerion to stop, so we could help the Stoneborn. If hadn't stopped him, we would've been safe. I got my entire squad killed, Ouros. I got _Gerion_ killed," his jaw twitched, but he kept his voice level. "I can't forget that."

"Then do him proud and help a new generation of Titans rise up." She stood and stared him down. "You went unflinching into the Ishtar Basin and almost got yourself cut in half by the Vex for our order. Can you face the City for us?"

Mouse stared at the floor for a moment. "Fine, but I'll do it my way," he grumped.

"You always do, Captain Tar." She cat-smiled at him and Mouse bristled.

"A name in a fragment of a memory. It's not me, not now," he sighed. "I'm not a Captain and that's not my..."

"You are now. And 'Captain Mouse' doesn't have any gravitas," Ouros folded her arms. "I'll let Zavala know."

_"Ugh."_

 

 

 


End file.
